For Better or Worse
by itsasham
Summary: Steve knew these things happened in prison, he just never thought they would happen to him. (Dark AU to the end of season 1/beginning of season 2. Rated M for swearing, and graphic descriptions of rape. This is seriously dark friends.)
Fair warning, this is dark and terrible things happen. Proceed with caution. (Formatting issues fixed I believe, let me know if they get messed up again.)

* * *

Steve is attacked in the showers on his second day in Halawa. He knew it was coming of course, as soon as he realized the guards didn't care what happened to him, and if they didn't care, protective custody meant nothing. He thought he was prepared, the constant diligence running his body ragged, but he can only hold off ten - no, thirteen - men for so long. He holds his own, knocking two of them out before one gets a lucky hit to his kidney and another slams his head into the cement wall so hard he sees stars. Someone grabs his hair and shoves his mouth and nose under the flow water, twisting the temperature as hot as it goes.

They hold him there, every man rushing in and grabbing his limbs as they start punching and kicking. He's sputtering and trying to fight, squeezing his eyes shut against the fiery hot spray. Steve knows his face will be red and blistered tomorrow, but he decides that is the least of his concerns. The men hold him there until he is choking and inhaling water, before pulling him back and throwing him on the floor.

Victor Hesse walks up and kicks him in the face.

The rest of the men cheer.

Things go down hill from there.

The guards drag Steve unconscious from the showers three hours later, laughing when he leaves a trail of blood from his ass. He doesn't move for two days, and only one pitying guard decides to bring him water. Steve snatches the bottle wearily and drinks it all, nearly choking.

"Can I get you anything?"

He shakes his head, dragging himself away on his forearms. Steve's legs are scraped, bloody and raw, from his knees to his toes, his back and stomach and chest are ugly and black with bruises, peppered with nail scrapes and bites across his shoulders. The guard cringes when he sees the angry blisters and burns mottling his face, nose inflamed and puffy, left eye swollen shut. He suspects his ass is the worst, judging but the small trail of blood following him to the corner.

"Your friend, the Detective, came to see you, we told him you didn't want any visitors. He seemed pretty upset, said to tell you he would be back."

Steve gives a full body shudder and curls in on himself.

"I-I ddon't want to see anyon-one, not now." His voice his so hoarse and raspy the guard can barely hear him. He nods, leaving and making a note to bring the inmate water again the next day.

Steve's fighting off five this time, ganged up and waking him with a punch to his head. He's weak, it's only been five days since he was attacked in the shower, and he hasn't eaten or had more than a few sips of water since. It doesn't take long for them to overpower him, and he goes down hard after one of them dislocates his arm.

They spend the entire night slowly fucking into him, taking turns, forcing his traitorous body to enjoy it and keeping him on edge all night. They laugh when he comes for the second time, face hidden in his arm.

The men leave when his cot is soaked in blood and he's unconscious on the floor in a pool of semen. They're laughing and saying he's better than all the girls outside.

Two hours after they move him into Gen Pop Steve's cornered and beaten to the floor. Someone grabs his mouth and tries to force it open, but he bites down, snarling and pulling away. They pinch his nose closed, laughing as his bucking and struggling slow. Two men start tearing at his face and gums when he opens his lips to breathe, grab his teeth, forcing his jaws apart as the back of his throat fills with blood and someone shoves their dick in. Steve bites down, throwing the hands off of him as a blood curdling scream rips through the air. But before he can get away more hands are grabbing him, punching and kicking. He tries to curl in on himself, feels his ribs crack, wrist break. Someone manages to get a hold of his jaw and force it open, pulling until he feels his tender lips tear and a sickening pop rips through the air.

He screams too then.

After being released from the med ward Steve is escorted to his cell, where he finds Hesse waiting like a large cat on dinner.

Hesse slams him to the floor, easily overpowering the drugged man, pulling his mouth open and shoving in.

"Here's how it's going to work bitch, you're mine, I own you. I decide if you eat, if you sleep, how you position yourself to be fucked. You are fair game in a prison where every single person wants you dead, but because of my protection you're alive. Do as you're told, when you're told to do it, and you keep that protection."

Steve shakes his head around the cock in his mouth, eyes filled with defiance.

"I guess I'll have to teach you, you ungrateful bitch. You're not going to be able to even swallow when I'm done with you."

He's never alone at night, Hesse always has favors he has to do, always someone crawling into his bed, shoving inside him. Just a hole to be used to them. Sometimes they fuck his mouth, sometimes he has to work harder, make them think he enjoys it.

They don't let him sleep, keeping him up all night or forcing him naked onto the floor in the early hours while they take his cot.

"You're going to love this you filthy little slut."

It's Hesse this time, slamming Steve into the wall of the cafeteria. Martin had come into the cell last night and joined in with Aloki, his ass is still sore from taking them both, but it's always sore these days.

Hesse shoves in the moment his jump suit is torn away - they took his underwear the minute it was issued. Steve grunts and closes his eyes against the familiar pain, bracing as Hesse thrusts until he is almost to completion before pulling out and spilling onto the floor. Steve is grabbed and pulled around, forced to his knees, his face shoved into the sticky mess.

"Clean it up, bitch." Steve can hear Hesse zipping his suit back up as he obediently begins to lick. He learned the hard way its mostly just easier to do what they want, a three day hospital ward stay will teach someone that. He had nearly panicked when they had threatened the team, Grace. He can take this for them, he's had worse. H-h-he can do this. He can do this. _He can do this._

Hesse makes him kneel naked in the corner - his jumpsuit tying his arms behind him to his feet - and swallow every cock shoved between his lips for the entire lunch hour.

The first thing he does when they let him up is race to the bathroom and puke until he passes out, the taste of bile and cock and semen clogging his throat. /p

He dreams of a smiling Danny and sunny days on beach the behind his house.

The new guy likes to pinch his nose while he kisses Steve, calling him adorable and pathetic when he tries to fight back. Forcing him to respond, and kiss back before he is allowed to breathe again.

Ever since The Shower Incident, they don't call him Steve, or even McGarrett, or the number stitched across the back of his uniform. They call him a greedy cock slut as they beat him to his knees, whore and bitch as they slam him into a wall and force inside, tearing his ass open.

They stop letting him get food at mealtimes, Hesse frequently kicking him under the table and shoving into his ruined mouth, holding him there with a bruising grip on his neck.

They use food to control him, keeping Steve healthy enough to move and function, but hungry and exhausted enough to not fight back. And besides Hesse thinks, cock held warm in trembling lips, all anyone had to do to get McGarrett to cooperate was threaten the dumb blonde Detective. He smiles, thinking of the way the once proud man had folded and bent to his will (or rather, over a chair) the first time he had done it. The fight falling from his limbs as his face became a mask of anger. How much fun it had been to fuck into his greedy lips and then order every single person in the Rec center to fuck that expression off his face.

Steve flinches away under the table when Hesse tries to stroke his head, smirking at just how far McGarrett has come.

The men laugh at him as he winces.

"Faster."

Steve obeys the command immediately, thrusting the utensil in and out of himself faster. It hurts, and his hand is slick with blood. Anger and shame and self hatred burn through his veins, leaving him exhausted. He doesn't want to do this anymore, he doesn't want to do anything anymore. He knows who to provoke to get himself beaten into oblivion. The only thing that stops him is the thought of might might happen to Danny and the team if he doesn't. God Danny. He still remembers when Hesse would come back to the cell and taunt him that his blonde Detective had come to see him, how every time he would get angrier that Steve was turning down his visits. Hesse teasing that his cock must be so much better than someone so short. Those nights would always be the worst, Hesse making sure his ass was full the entire night. He can't even remember the last time he saw Danny. Steve didn't know it was possible to miss someone this much.

That night Steve lays in his bed, another favor for Hesse fucking into him. He muffles his cries of pain into his arm, tears soaking the bed sheets.

Steve knows he is going to have trouble eating for a few days after Hartford, even with his gag reflex long gone this guy is intent on making him choke, even if he has to tie a jump suit sleeve around Steve's neck while he pounds into his throat to do it.

They start to blindfold him, the men getting off on his stumbling around. Laughing when he trips. They gag him later merely as a joke, humiliation, he hasn't spoken, except to the one kind guard, since the first attack. Only grunts of pain, and in the early days grunts as he tried to fight them off.

Someone gets the idea to tie him up in the Rec Center with his own jump suit, bending him over a chair and leaving him there for hours with his ass in the air, a free fuck for any who walk by.

He's been puking for two days, fever wracking his body, joints aching with every movement. Steve's never been so happy to have the stomach flu.

"He doesn't speak, no use trying to beat it out of him."

"I'll make him, I want to hear the bitch beg me to stop."

"He won't do it, but you can try."

Steve stays in his cell for two days following, bruising circling around his neck, face swollen and black, still the mute bitch they expect him to be.

It takes Danny 11 months, 6 days, and 13 hours to prove Steve's innocence. He hasn't seen him once in all that time, but he has never felt happier than watching him walk out the prison gates a free man. The anger at every visit being refused melting awa - but wait - Steve isn't walking, he's limping, badly, wince poorly hidden on his bruised face.

He sees the exact moment that Steve notices him, meeting his eyes, confusion and bewilderment morphing into joy.

"Danny?"

He smiles, "Hey babe," and tries not to let his brain focus on how raspy and painful Steve's voice even sounds.

Steve still looks confused, like he wants to ask questions but is stopping himself. It's when Danny steps forward, reaching out to hug his best friend that he realizes how thin he is, clothes hanging loosely off him, pants bunched around his waist where only his belt is holding them up. His face looks exhausted, tiny scars tracing out from the corners of his lips, brow furrowed as his eyes widen in panic and he flinches, stumbling backwards the moment Danny's had touches his arm.

With crystal, heartwrenching clarity Danny suddenly realizes what's been done to him these past 11 months, 6 days, and 13 hours.

Steve writhes as the fifth man of the night empties into him, the next man pulling out of his mouth and shoving into his ass, slick with blood and come. Another shoves in his lips, and he does as he knows he is supposed to, licking and sucking at the intrusion. His own cock throbs painfully, the tight band of fabric around the base a crude cock ring to prevent him from coming. The men know this - know he is not allowed to come unless its Hesse's dick in him - and purposefully hit his prostate, tease and twist his nipples. They try to goad him into begging, or crying for release, pleading for them to stop, but he never has, and he refuses to start now.

It takes a week for Steve to stop flinching and jumping at every sound. Danny doesn't touch him, hands making a dozen aborted moves towards him a day. He knows Steve blames himself for whatever happened in there, as surely as he knows nothing was his fault. Danny suspects the guards - which fills him with fury to his core - because Steve was in protective custody until his trial, how could anyone have been able to get to him? He's been trying to investigate quietly, but has gotten nowhere since Steve hasn't said anything and refused to make a statement (and yelled at Danny, the most he had spoken since getting out, at his suggestion of consulting a therapist). Steve had thankfully taken his suggestion about not returning to work for awhile seriously, and told the new Governor that he would be taking a six month break from Five - O, he was understanding, incredibly apologetic, and even told Steve he would pay him for the duration of his absence - the least he could do - he said.

Danny spends most of his time off at Steve's - even sleeping there most nights. He always brings food, ranging from takeout to home cooked Williams family secret recipes. Steve is careful to never take his shirt off around Danny, always wearing long pants and one of his collared polo t-shirts, but Danny doesn't need to see him shirtless to know he lost at least 40 pounds, probably more, and most of his muscle mass. He tries not to mentally catalog all the ways Steve has changed, but he can't stop himself from filing them away in a list.

Two weeks in, Steve slides into bed behind him, gently rubbing his shoulder.

"What's up Steve, everything okay?" His voice is sleep laden, muffled into his pillow, he sleeps lightly most nights now.

"Can I stay?" Steve is barely whispering, hand shaking, another new development since his return.

"Yeah, of course, you okay? Want to talk about it?" They don't discuss the all the times they had causal sex Before. Danny doesn't mention that he always wanted more, that he still wants more, whatever Steve is willing to give him./p

Steve doesn't answer, fisting his hands into Danny's t-shirt and pulling close, but not touching. Letting his scent fill his nose and soothe his racing heart, bringing him back to here. Tries to force himself to learn to be okay with just this, this and no more from Danny, because how could he love someone like Steve now?

They fastened some kind of plug out of duct tape and rubber from a shoe. He doesn't even know where they got the duct tape. Doesn't care. It rubs his hole raw. Stings when they rip the tape off. Holds everything in, leaving him feeling full and filthy and repulsive.

It starts with Steve tentatively leaning forward and brushing his lips against Danny's. He pulls back almost immediately, looking away, stepping back and apologizing profusely.

"Stop that, stop, you don't need to apologize."

"Danny, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, don't hate me. Ple-Please don't leave." He chokes out the end, head bowed, his hands shaking for the first time in over a year.

"Babe, you're not listening." Danny reaches forward, gently cupping his cheek, stopping Steve's rant. He inhales sharply, closing his eyes.

"I'm so sorry." Spoken in a whisper, leaning his head into Danny's hand.

He cuts him off, leaning forward, pulling Steve's head down to meet his. Tries to fill the kiss with all the overwhelming love and fondness he already feels for him.

Steve freezes against lips, Danny repositioning his hands to make sure he doesn't feel trapped, that he can back away if he needs to.

Steve stays, slowly responding, a noise of contentment rising from his throat.

They pull back when oxygen becomes necessary, panting into the other's mouth.

"How can you stand to touch me?" Steve's voice is strained, laced with pain.

t's been two years, and Danny knows Steve still hasn't forgiven himself, still blames himself. Sometimes still struggles with remembering where and when he is. Danny is the only one who knows, although he's pretty sure Chin suspects. Returning to work, recovering, was slow, and Danny knows it's not over, and maybe never will be. He doesn't expect Steve to become the same person he was before, but he's wants to give him this, prove to him there isn't something wrong with him, something defective because of whatever happened.

"None of what happened there matters to me Steve. I loved you before all that and never stopped loving you since-"

"But if you knew what happened-"

"It doesn't matter to me Steve."

Steve sighs, exhale wobbly and choked. Danny doesn't need to look to know he's holding back tears.

Their naked bodies are slotted together, sweat cooling on their skin when Steve speaks.

"They ambushed me in the showers my second day. I knew it was coming, the guards didn't care what happened to me so someone let them in. There was thirteen to start with, but I think more came. I tried to fight, but they overpowered me."

Slowly, over the next six nights, Steve haltingly tells Danny everything. Whispering the words into his shoulder, or neck, hiding his face from the eventual hatred and disgust he knows he will see there. Instead, the confessions are followed by comfort and reassurances, anger at the men who did this and promises of repercussions, but never judgement, never repulsion. The pauses and silences are frequent, but Danny never pushes, knowing he is getting more than the therapist Steve eventually started seeing ever got. Trying to convey his unchanging love and affection through his touches and constant presence. Danny cries with Steve, sometimes hiding and holding back tears privately. He's seen Steve's scars - both mental and physical - but he can't process the shear brutality of it all.

Largely, Steve telling him everything that happened changes nothing. Danny still treats Steve the same, teasing and bickering constantly, calling him on his shit when he needs to. Sex had started a bit awkward and confusing, Danny having never been with a man - baring a few college one-night stands - and Steve with his own obvious issues, but the revelations gives Danny an insight into what to do and what not to do. Steve had hating outlining what he was and wasn't comfortable with, saying it made him feel inadequate, and Danny had understood, taking it slow, never demanding or pushing. But the revelations allow a new level of intimacy to form between them, partnering closer and in every way possible.

Steve's nose is nestled in Danny's collarbone, breath warming and cooling his skin in time with his exhalations. Arms wrapped around each other, movie long ignored.

"Hey Danny?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you marry me?"

Danny startles, he wasn't expecting this conversation, but he's not objecting to it.

"Yes. A thousand times yes."

Steve props himself up, meeting Danny's eyes, face a mask of barely concealed joy. "Really?"

Danny kisses him then, pulling Steve closer and letting his lips answer for him. Steve relaxes into him, pressing his body to Danny's, cupping the base of his head and kissing kissing kissing until Danny pulls back.

"It's always a yes Steve. I'm not leaving you, for better or worse."

FINIS. (I lied, there might be a few timestamps in the works, this muse won't leave)


End file.
